An Unseen Opponent
by haveyounomercy
Summary: It all started with Italy, who was very sure that America had defied the laws of nature. So why did it have to end in poor little Latvia's hospital room? One-shot.


**A/N Dedicated to ****sonofon****, the loveliest beta in all the land. **

**This is my first time writing Hetalia, so forgive me if any major screw-ups happen. I've only watched the anime, and just so you guys know: Raivis = Latvia, one of Russia's weak little henchmen/follower.**

**I got the idea for this after hearing that Canada beat Latvia 16-0 in the Junior World Cup. Other facts like America's match were made up and I can promise you that none of this is historically accurate at all.**

**Disclaimer: Let's be reasonable now, shall we?**

* * *

"Oh my god! Oh my god! Germany, GERMANY!" A red-headed, wimpy looking boy rushed through the halls, flipping open doors and peeking inside rooms hurriedly.

"Germany! Where are you?" He cried, still opening doors randomly to find his ally. Behind him, chaos ensued and people screamed and cried and blamed others for the invasion of privacy.

Finally, he arrived at a large imposing door with a big gold plate on the front that was adorned with lots of wax that seemed to make it shine. Ignoring all of this, Feliciano flung the door open, yelling out Germany's name.

Or at least, he tried to.

The door, made of a sturdy oak, was of the revolving kind. It was also of the very heavy kind.

Thus, when Italy tried to fling it open, he only managed to budge it open a wee bit before it swung backwards and sent him sprawling on the floor.

Down the halls, pots and pans were flying in and out of the kitchen as everyone in Germany's house seemed bent on wreaking havoc and mayhem.

So when Germany returned from his meeting with Japan, his house was noisy, his people were running around screaming, everything was in chaos, and North Italy was bawling in front of his main bathroom, holding a newspaper clipping in his hand, screaming Germany's name.

Only then did the words "You work too hard, Germany" from the earlier meeting with Japan hit him.

In fact, it hit him pretty hard.

As hard as a pan to the back of his skull.

* * *

Cradling an ice pack to the back of his head, Ludwig sighed and decided that he was aging too fast for his own comfort. If the wrinkles on his forehead said anything, it was that he needed to take things slower. He glanced over his long wooden desk at the sniffling, gloomy boy across from him.

"I'm sorry, Germany…" The boy wailed. "It's just, everything was so scary and I just _had_ to show it to you!"

Ludwig's eyebrow rose. "So what was it that you wanted to show me?"

Feliciano brightened instantly, and he slapped a page hastily ripped out of the newspaper onto the desk. It was all in Italian, but it seemed to be two separate articles with a few pictures of the action. Ludwig squinted, and recognized it as ice hockey.

"So?" He shrugged. Feliciano frowned and slammed it down once again, trying to emphasize his point.

"I don't really understand…" Ludwig began, and his little buddy seemed to understand.

"It says here that this guy," Feliciano pointed at a particularly crazy-looking person in the picture (who looked vaguely familiar), "Won over this guy," he then pointed at the other guy on the picture, a weak, small-looking one, "16-0."

Ludwig's eyebrows furrowed. _16-0? That must've been pretty harsh._

"And in this article, it says that this guy," Feliciano pointed at a proud individual, "Won this guy," he then pointed to a cowering nation, "10-2."

Ludwig frowned. What was North Italy trying to tell him? Sure, those were some pretty crazy hockey scores, but was that the only reason he had come to visit?

Feliciano looked eagerly at him.

"…Is that all?" Ludwig stared back.

"You don't get it!" The smaller nation slammed it on the table again, wibbling.

"I can't say I do."

"Okay okay, look closely." They both leaned in towards the pictures. "Look at this guy, and then look at this guy…"

Ludwig's eyebrows started to rise.

"This guy here is America. You know him and I know him too. The newspaper says that he won this game, and this figure, the so-called 'Canada', won this game over here."

The blonde nation did not respond.

"Look closely! America has done something crazy! That's obviously him in both of the pictures! Meaning…" Feliciano looked around nervously before leaning in even closer.

"He was playing two separate hockey games, at two separate places, _AT THE SAME TIME!_"

Ludwig blinked.

* * *

"AMERICA!" Two bodies barreled themselves into America's living room, one falling onto the floor and the other wobbling to stay straight, panting heavily.

Alfred stared.

"Germany? North Italy?" He cocked his head to the side and put down his coke. His eyes slowly dawned with recognition as the two struggled to catch their breath. Standing up, he rolled up his sleeves and adjusted his glasses. "Ah, so you guys are trying to invade me, huh?"

His glasses glinted. "Well, bring it-"

"What is the meaning of this?!" Suddenly, Alfred had a face full of some kind of paper, which muffled all of his surprised cries. Pushing the strong arms that held the paper to his face away, Alfred spluttered, trying to gather air back into his lungs.

"What… What are you doing?" He yelled, retreating behind a sofa.

"How did you do this?" The paper was shoved in his face again, but this time Alfred tore it out of the hands and read it for himself.

He frowned at the Italian words at first, but then he looked at the pictures.

He stared.

He blinked.

* * *

"ENGLAND! ENGLAND!" England looked up as three nations piled into his house, one bawling, one shouting and one being… America.

Almost instinctively, England, from across the front hall, shut the door to the living room with a slam.

And then all hell broke loose.

"ENGLAND! I HAVE SOMETHING SUPERBLY AWESOME TO SHOW YOU!"

"America! I demand answers _immediately_!"

"Germanyyyy! I don't understand how he does ittt!"

England closed his eyes and covered his ears. He counted slowly to ten. He uncovered his ears.

_Bang, bang, bang._ "IT'S REALLY COOL!"

_Crash, crash, crash._ "America! Listen to me!"

_Sob, sob, sob._ "Germanyyyyyy!"

Just as he was about to leave from the back door, he spotted a familiar looking boat coming his way. Blanching, he stood and thought for around ten seconds.

To stay and listen to America's news?

Or to leave and encounter France?

Grumbling, he went to go open his living room door.

* * *

"You _what_?" England almost dropped his tea in horror.

"I can teleport through time and space! Clone! Do magic!" Alfred grinned as he took a sip of tea.

The two other European nations sat together on another couch in silence.

"It's quite simple, really. I didn't even realize it, but I seem to have developed some kind of special power. Perhaps it had to do with that hamburger I had before the game. Normally, I eat a Big Mac from McDonalds, along with some large fries and a shake in the locker room to prep myself, but that day I was in a hurry and somehow took a Chicken Burger instead! See, I told you that these things were important, Arthur! I even managed to beat Latvia sixteen-nil! I don't remember much of it, perhaps because it was too boring so my memory decided to stock up on the other match, which was just a bit more exciting."

Alfred looked over the rim of his cup at the other nation and grinned as he finished his speech. "I guess I really am that amazing, huh Arthur?"

Arthur's head was spinning as he digested all of the information. He shook his head in disbelief. "No matter how awesome that is, that's just not possible, Alfred."

"Exactly!" Everyone in the room jumped as Ludwig slammed a gloved fist onto the coffee table. "It's impossible to do, so I need the answers on how this happened!" He pointed at the now torn and worn newspaper clipping in America's hand.

Meanwhile, Feliciano tried to scrape the remains of a scone off of his tongue.

"Well, I don't really remember how it happened or what happened…" America pondered before squeezing himself into a small ball, closing his eyes and clenching his fists.

"What on Earth are you doing?" Arthur looked skeptically on.

"Shh! I'm trying to split myself into two!"

Arthur resisted the urge to slap his brother-of-sorts and he sighed. Out of the corner of his eye, he duly noted that both Germany and North Italy were leaning forward in their seats, watching intently.

The niggling doubt in his mind that maybe America could indeed defy the laws of nature didn't help his headache. It was a small, tiny chance of possibility, but he wouldn't delve on it. Shaking his head, he was just about to usher them all out when Alfred made a small sort of strangled noise.

"What is it?" Arthur's head snapped around to look at the other nation sharply. Ludwig was now gripping the coffee table and Feliciano looked like he was going to foam at the mouth and faint at any second.

"I don't know, but I feel like something inside of me snapped. Maybe I did it…?" Alfred looked confused.

Ludwig caught Feliciano mid-faint and, with a dizzy North Italy in his arms, proceeded to interrogate Alfred. "Where are you? The other you, I mean. How long have you been able to do this? We have to report you to the National Bureau of Science!"

All at once, Alfred, shocked, practically flew over to Arthur. "Did you hear that? He wants to put me into a lab and have mad scientists operate on me! Madness! Save me, Arthur!"

"America! We have to…"

"Arthur! Help me! This is Madness, I tell you, Madness! How dare he…"

"Enough!" This was getting far too out of hand for Arthur's liking. Silencing the nations, he grabbed his coat from the couch. "You said that the match was against Latvia, right? Maybe he'll know the answers."

* * *

"Latvia! Latvia!"

Latvia almost whimpered as he cowered lower into his hospital bed, praying that what he was seeing was a hallucination caused by the pain meds he had been given that morning.

Unfortunately, as all four nations crowded around his little bed (North Italy had revived and was now poking his blood bag with interest), Latvia's mind swirled.

Everyone was suddenly talking at the same time, asking him 'why' and 'what' and 'how' and Raivis could swear that his eyes were spinning along with his ears at all the chaos.

Finally a nurse came in and berated them all into giving him some peace and quiet. They promised to, but Raivis somehow didn't quite believe it.

"Latvia…" The person Latvia recognized as Germany stepped forward and looked at the small country who looked even more pitiful and weak in the middle of all those white sheets. "Who did this to you?"

Latvia paused, and looked upward at the ceiling.

Everyone leaned in.

"Canada." Raivis said softly. "Matthew Williams."

They all stood there for a while, trying to match up the name to a face. Suddenly, Ludwig whirled around and grabbed Alfred by the collar of his shirt.

"You made an alias and a different identity along with time-warping?" He bellowed, shaking America back and forth. "Have you no shame?"

"I didn't do that! I've never heard of that name in my life!" Alfred glared, trying to fight back.

"Canada? Sounds familiar…" England wondered aloud, ignoring the fight. "Are you sure you've got it right?"

Raivis sighed, and he looked at his broken body. "I think…" He breathed in. "I think that I would remember the person who gave me two fractured bones, three broken ribs, a dislocated shoulder, a shattered collarbone, four chipped teeth…"

Arthur took in a sharp breath of air. "That's pretty harsh-"

"…a sprained ankle, seventeen stitches on my forehead, fourteen stitches on my hip…"

The blonde nation grimaced. "…Is that-"

"…seven broken nails, two cracked toes and…" Raivis trailed off, wincing in pain.

"And?" Arthur's eyes widened as he grabbed Latvia's hand. "Are you okay? Is there something bothering you?"

"…Yes," Raivis said weakly, pointing at Feliciano who was standing on his IV cord. "Please get him off."

After throwing Feliciano aside, Arthur let Raivis rest. Surely there was some mistake. He knew not of any such person named Matthew Williams. What on Earth was going on?

* * *

Feliciano, sulking in his corner, perked as the door to the room slid open, revealing a new nation.

This nation was smiling calmly, even though there was some worry evident in his eyes. Carrying a bouquet of flowers in one hand and a white bear in the other, his body seemed to flicker between transparency and real live flesh. "Latvia, I brought-" The nation stopped, confused, looking at everyone else in the room.

Feliciano's mouth opened and his finger lifted up slowly to point at the being in horror.

"_HE'S DONE IT AGAIN!_" He immediately turned to look at Alfred in awe.

"What?" Arthur stared in disbelief at the flickering image of the nation at the door, who just wanly smiled and waved.

"Ah, Canada," Raivis managed out painfully.

Ludwig, hearing this, started to shake Alfred in the air again. "And you dared to deny it!"

Arthur looked from Raivis to Canada to Raivis to America to Raivis and then to the sky. "God save us all," He muttered.

Alfred, who had by now fought himself out of Ludwig's warpath, looked at Arthur eagerly.

"Look! It's not that good of a model, but I did it again!" He grinned.

Still standing in the doorway, Matthew smiled.

"Who are you?" The bear in his arm looked up and asked.

"I'm Canada," Matthew replied, tilting his head. Ah, it was like last year all over again.

A strange glint appeared in his eyes.

Except that this year, he had been _much_ harder on Latvia, the poor thing.

He smiled, and looked forward to the following week when he'd be playing Alfred.


End file.
